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Friday is a special day for the furries, there’s a tradition of posting photographs on social media under the hashtag fursuitfriday, (#fursuitfriday) Have a look and see what my fellow fuzzies are up to!

A classic #fursuitfriday image of Marshall

In campaign news, the At Home With The Furries Kickstarter is now up to 44% backed with 85 supporters, there are 19 days left so worth getting pledges in sooner rather than later. One thing that’s worth mentioning is that the funds are only taken from backers at the end of the campaign, April 5th. And that’s assuming the target is met, no target, no money and that’s the end of the story. But we don’t want to do that, oh no! Fingers and paws crossed. Click here

The furries are hugging to get this project over the line

In publicity news, Cosmopolitan interviewed me for their website (the US version) and did a really nice job with the feature. The conversation took place over the phone and I’m pleased that the journalist Kaitlin Menza included my anecodotes about furries, scalies and featheries. Thanks to the photo editor, Kathleen Kamphausen for organising that. See here

Lupus Londonwolf and Alfa Fox

Finally, I was pleased to hear from an old friend, Wolfy who I got to know at one of my very first furmeets in London. It was one of those classic situations where I was with some friends and I noticed he was on his own, we got chatting and it turned out he knew me through the magazine, Bizarre ( I used to be the photo editor there) he was a keen reader and we have kept in touch since through social media and the odd furmeet and convention. He backed the book this week and tweeted the following.

“Before (the furries) I had no social life. Struggled like hell with people and often had panic attacks. It wasn’t until I started to go to furry meets that I actually felt connected with people. For the most part the people were friendly and welcoming and very understanding. I still struggle at times in crowds but I have been to conventions, done furry camping. Things that would have scared the hell out of me 10 years ago”

There are plenty of fantastic rewards available, postcards, limited edition prints, the book and lots of actual fur, including slipcases and tote bags. You can pledge any amount to back the campaign. Click here and let Pazuzu tell you more

Straight off the bat, I am so grateful to each and every one of you who have backed, shared and mentioned the At Home With The Furries book Kickstarter campaign so far. This book is about communicating a thought I had nearly ten years ago, I had no idea then that I would be now sitting here writing a blog post about how privileged I am to have this level of support for the project.

To break it down into numbers, we launched on Tuesday at 8am and since then 67 amazing people have pledged just over £3000, putting us just shy of 33% of the total required to publish the book. The campaign closes on April 5th.

A sample of the fur being used by Curious Creatures to make the furry slipcases. One of the campaign rewards

It was always my intention to publish a book of the work, and every magazine feature, exhibition, website and press article that has been published in the subsequent years since I started the project helped me along towards that goal.

From the Absolut Manifesto Festival, Madrid, January 2018

I should add at this point that this project has been and is only possible because I have the support of the furries themselves. Those who have featured in the book of course, but also those who I’ve met more widely, through for example social media, sometimes following that up in person at furry meets and conventions. Perhaps furries who have visited from abroad and we’ve met for a coffee, a tea or a pint.

Shooting the film for the Kickstarter campaign with Syrrus Fox and Lupestripe

The project has grown organically, through being given the nod by furries I had photographed, and other furs I met at meets and on walks. In 2013 when The Sunday Times Magazine featured the project, I had no idea that I was only halfway through at that point. Since then, Saethwr, Fangorn, Rebel, Pazuzu, Bucky, Zepp, Blacksnip, Edward Fuzzypaws and many more furs have allowed me to go to their homes and make portraits of them.

Edward Fuzzypaws, a poodle and Teddy, a labradoodle in their drawing room

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Today I launch a Kickstarter to self-publish At Home With The Furries as my first book.

The intention with At Home With The Furries has always been to publish a book of the work. I felt back in 2008 when I initially started working with Smirnoff, Lupus, Alfa, Lupestripe, Broccoli, Chill and Zuki that there weren’t really any portrayals of the furries in the media that were balanced or fair and so my approach was to address that with my photography. My plan was to do something that although quirky, the idea of placing a furry in a domestic setting, the overarching feeling was to laugh with them, not at them. I was more interested in building a relationship with the furries I photographed, and indeed that happened quite naturally. I was a stranger, an outsider to this world and yet I could not have been welcomed more warmly into people’s houses.

The project over the years has received some wonderful feedback, not least from furries themselves. One confided to me that having seen the feature in The Sunday Times Magazine (March 2013), it gave him the confidence to go to his first furry meet and make friends. For me personally a watershed moment was seeing Smirnoff, the husky wolf, the first picture I took for the project, feature in the book by Paul Lowe, 1001 Photographs You Must See Before You Die. Mainly to see my work alongside work by photographers such as Leonard Freed, Eve Arnold, Susan Meisalas, Simon Norfolk and Sandy Skoglund (photographers I studied at college and university) spurred me on to move ahead with the Kickstarter to self-publish the book.

The key to any successful Kickstarter is to put together a great video and its thanks mostly to two furries who have become close friends and supporters of the project over the years. Pazuzu and Lupestripe. The idea of shooting a short film about the furries had been on my mind for a while and so the thought of bringing the furry project to life on film seemed like a logical next step. You can see the campaign video here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/466109304/at-home-with-the-furries

In 2016 I attended a book making workshop with Aron Morel at Photofusion, it was there that I was challenged to decide what my vision for a photobook would be of the project. Since then, the concept has become more fleshed out and everything about the book reflects the nature of the project. The cover, the paper stock, the materials, the design, the writing, the photography and the rewards for the crowdfunder.

Alexandra Tomlin, a professional animator and illustrator, designed the cover.

The cover will be a flock (felt) material and the plan is for the design to be foil blocked onto the surface.

The designer is Roger Fawcett-Tang of Struktur Design, I’ve worked with Roger for many years on book projects.

The book will also contain an essay by Laura Noble, she has written a wonderful piece about the project.

It will also have a text by Uncle Kage, the chairman of Anthrocon, a Pittsburgh based furry convention. It’s also one of the biggest furry conventions in the world with attendees numbering some 5000 every year.

There will also be additional illustrations inside the book alongside thoughts, words and quotes from the furries themselves.

It is being printed in Turkey by Ufuk Sahin, a leading photobook printer.

The rewards for pledging include postcards, limited edition prints, furry tote bags, furry slipcases and of course the book itself. All book pledgers get their name/chosen name in the back of the book as a supporter.

I will be posting many more updates over the next 30 days as the campaign goes on.

Although I wanted this book review to start off as some sort of parable for a meaning in life, I didn’t want it to come across as so worthy or as dull as that. ( as though you can bring genuine meaning to a book review..Ed)

I was recently sent a copy of Céline Stella’s book, Nour by Justin Quirk who runs the photobook publisher, NOUFOS. It has a very simple premise, to document the shops and outlets around the area of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia at night. With the wonderful addition of neon light blazing out from all areas of the photographs.

The photographer who works in Saudi Arabia noticed neon-lit kiosks, food stalls and trucks whilst driving through the desert one night, she then shot the entire project over five days during Ramadan.

It is slightly bigger than A5 in size ( 18 x 25cm) , printed on a glossy black paper with spot varnish giving lovely tone and reproduction. It’s 40 pages long and is £15 plus P+P.

The pictures have a dreamy quality, I really liked the simple premise, the format and the way the book was designed and presented. Looking forward to more from NOUFOS.

Last Thursday saw the grand opening of FIXPhoto at the Bargehouse on the Southbank , a huge exhibition of cutting edge photography organised by L A Noble gallery with 22 artists showcasing their work including Emily Allchurch, Lisa Creagh, Einar Sira, Robert Clayton and yours truly.

Picture: Neil Massey

The turnout was spectacular and one or two furries made an appearance which went down well. Zuki the gargoyle, Sticks the Fox, Edward Fuzzypaws, Bhavvels Bunny, Quartermane and Kreek put on a performance which people are still talking about. Yes I might have said, ‘explore the four floors of art and photography and have some fun’

The writer David Secombe wrote about the exhibition on the London Column here. Here’s an excerpt: “A nod to Lewis Carroll isn’t inappropriate, given that the furry domain shares some of the dreamy charm, transformative power and moral complexity that he represents. That seems obvious enough. But the image of the stag invokes the iconography of the pre-civilized mind and a time when woods were feared and venerated. This stag is a forest god; one that might be worshipped as part of the sacred, time-honoured rituals of Summerisle”

The exhibition closes on Sunday, the 22nd at 8.30pm.

The work is on sale as editioned signed prints, framed and unframed.

Thanks to Zuki, Bhavvels, Albrecht, Pickle, Edward and Sticks for the wonderful support.

Firstly Laura Noble, the photography gallery owner and curator has taken me on as one of her represented photographers, have a look at L A Noble Gallery. This is wonderful news for the furry project. As readers of this blog may have picked up on, it’s very important to me that the work is used and appropriated on the best and most suitable platforms whether that is print, online and now within the context of a gallery; essentially to reciprocate the trust the furries have given me over the years. Laura Noble has been following the project, since I started it and this gallery representation is a boost to the work and also the overall plan of making a book of At Home With The Furries.

Secondly the project will be exhibited in central London from May 13th to the 22nd at the Oxo Bargehouse, part of the Oxo Tower on the Southbank. It’s being showcased alongside 17 other collections of work by some very talented photographers as part of a new photo festival called FIXphoto. It’s an honour to be showcasing At Home With The Furries alongside work by photographers such as Emily Allchurch, Lottie Davies, Marta Kochanek, Robert Clayton, Einar Sina and Chris Steele-Perkins to name a few.

I’m very pleased to be working with Richard Wills at Photofusion who will be making all the prints for the exhibition. I started working with Photofusion about two years ago and their professionalism is second to none.

Whilst I shamelessly rip off Bill and Ted’s line with one hand, I selflessly hold onto the lack of waspish ways within the anthropomorphic fandom. That’s right, where are the pretty stinging varieties; the wasps, the bees and the dragonflies. A distinct gap in the market, until now.

I met Hazel last weekend and she shared my surprise that the bringers of honey haven’t really been acknowledged within the furry community. The birds can call themselves ‘featheries’, the dragons and snakes have ‘scalies’, even horses can call themselves ‘hoofers’. Well maybe. What do the insects have? You tell me.

Sticks and Edward Fuzzypaws

As I wandered the streets of the City of London, I came across these unusual looking creatures. This was not planned at all honest. It wasn’t a special Christmas party for the Londonfurs I swear.

The badger who calls himself Feral seems suitably grumpy, he reminds me of ‘Badger’ from Fantastic Mr Fox. Hvedra is a cassiopeia and both are on the radar for At Home With The Furries

Pazuzu is a wonderful creature, calling himself a self-styled demon lord. He speaks as a character straight out of a Bram Stoker novel

A skulk of foxes, a pack of wolves, a terror of dragons and a smattering of cats, sheep and all manner of hybrid creatures lined up for the school photograph.